|
|
Alumni News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned to the East Coast in 1806, they carried a large collection of dried plants inside a press. Almost 200 years later, Rick McCourt '74 works directly with the fruits of the explorers' labors. As associate curator of the Academy of Natural Sciences, he is one of two people in charge of an extensive herbarium that includes 226 sheets of plants collected during Lewis and Clark's three-year, cross-country expedition. "It's a quirk of fate that I am working with plants from the Lewis and Clark expedition," McCourt says. "It's one of those curious things about life. Without trying, I have, in a sense, come back to my roots." McCourt, who majored in biology at Lewis & Clark College, enjoys the historical and botanical connection of the Lewis and Clark Collection. With a doctorate from the University of Arizona in ecology and evolutionary biology, McCourt describes himself as a botanical historian. When offered the Academy of Natural Sciences' (ANS) position two-and-a-half years ago, he resigned from teaching at DePaul University, because "I could still teach, but I could also focus on primitive green plants, the ancestors of land plants before they invaded the land, and I could study Lewis' plants."
'Lewis thought enough about each plant that he collected it and labeled it with a purple tag....' McCourt was part of a five-year effort of 200 scientists in 12 countries to research the "Green Eve," the single-cell algae that moved from fresh water to land and evolved into all things green. The story made the front page of The Washington Post in August. McCourt spends about half his time conducting research. In that way, he and Associate Curator Alfred E. Schuyler see themselves as a team of explorers like Lewis and Clark. "Lewis and Clark are textbook heroes I learned about growing up in the West," says McCourt. "Here, I get to work with the plants they collected from the earth. Lewis thought enough about each plant that he collected it and labeled it with a purple tag so we would have it 200 years from then and beyond. It is exciting and exhilarating to work so closely with these plants. " A National Public Radio science correspondent for 10 years, McCourt tells how these dried plants traveled from the West Coast to the East Coast, then over the Atlantic Ocean, before eventually making their way home to the ANS in Philadelphia. "The plants did get mislaid for a while," says McCourt. "They were stored in a cabinet, safe but overlooked, at the American Philosophical Society," he explains. "How did they get there? Well, in a roundabout way. "When the explorers returned to the East Coast, Lewis gave the plant samples to Benjamin Smith Barton, the professor who, at Thomas Jefferson's request, schooled Lewis in flora. After Lewis' death in 1809, Clark reclaimed them from Frederick Pursh, another of Barton's students. "But," McCourt says, "unknown to Clark, Pursh kept some of the plants Lewis had picked. Pursh had obtained them through Barton to use as models for illustrations in a two-volume book published in 1813. (The book is dated 1814, but Barton gave copies to a few friends in 1813.) "The plants Pursh purloined became part of the herbarium owned by Aylmer Lambert, a rich Briton. When Lambert died in the 1840s, the British Museum bought most of the collection at an auction. At the end of the day, after the museum had claimed its purchases, a cabinet of North American plant material remained. "Edward Tuckerman bought the cabinet and gave it to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where botanists added the contents to the hundreds and thousands of other specimens in the extensive herbarium," McCourt says. "Among them were 47 Lewis and Clark plants.
The Lewis and Clark plant collection includes 50 or 60 specimens that were new to science. "Fifty years later, academy botanist Thomas Meehan found about 180 pressed plants at the American Philosophical Society, where Barton was a founding member. Many of the specimens appeared to be labeled in Lewis' hand. Using Pursh's books as reference, researchers surmised that all these specimens were gathered by Lewis. By 1898, the researchers could decisively say these dried samples were the Lewis and Clark Collection. "The entire story is in Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists, a book the College acquired from book collector Roger Wendlick for its special collections," concludes McCourt. One or more plants are mounted on each of the 226 sheets of aged 11-inch by 17-inch paper. Quite fragile, each plant sheet is kept in an archival folder and is protected from insects, molds, mildews and other potentially damaging environmental factors. The collection is stored in large metal cabinets with tight-fitting, bug-proof seals. In May, McCourt received a $150,000 federal Save America's Treasures Award to install proper temperature and humidity controls for the historic Lewis and Clark Collection. The Lewis and Clark Collection is important, according to McCourt, because it includes 50 or 60 specimens that were new to science, such as Oregon grape, Oregon's state flower; bitterroot, Montana's state flower; bear grass; and several large big-leaf maples. When visitors such as Wendlick and Doug Erickson, College archivist, visit, McCourt shows them how the Lewis and Clark expedition expanded knowledge of western plants. He enjoys bringing out a one-of-a-kind, handmade 1790s workbook by Lewis' teacher Barton. Then, he pulls Lewis' Oregon grape specimen from its cabinet and lays it alongside the illustration Pursh drew for his 1813 book Flora Americae Septentrioralis. "You can recognize that it's the same plant you see today," McCourt explains. "Then, you look at the tag and see the time of year it was collected and the general location." "We were privileged to see the specimens," says Erickson, "to be able to get right up close and smell them." The sample of Indian tobacco, now considered extinct because botanists cannot find it in its natural setting, impressed Wendlick and Erickson. "Rick has a real passion for Lewis and Clark," Erickson says. "He's pleased that the College is planning activities during the bicentennial focusing on the significance of the new information the explorers brought back from the West." McCourt and Schuyler are hosting a series of herbarium tours anticipating the bicentennial of the expedition. Currently, several hundred people a year look at the Lewis and Clark Collection. McCourt and Schuyler expect that number to double or triple as the bicentennial nears. The academy staff thinks of the herbarium as a library to use to identify plants and to verify that certain plants existed in specific locales. Botanists and other scientists make appointments to view the specimens as part of their research. Today, through carbon isotope analysis, atmospheric chemists are able to determine the composition of the air used by plants that Lewis collected. McCourt says scientists are always developing new ways to study the Lewis and Clark plants. Someday, the DNA analysis used by McCourt and others to discover the "Green Eve" may be used to pinpoint the living descendants of the plants collectedby Lewis and Clark. &emdash;by Kris Anderson McIvor
|
First Lady Hilary Clinton congratulates Rick McCourt '74, who received a $150,000 grant from Save America's Treasures, a program to celebrate the coming millennium by preserving the nation's cultural heritage. The collection is important not only for its historic value but for its scientific value. Samples from some of the specimen sheets are examined by botanists studing plant genetics, while molecular data from the tissues of others are being scrutinized to reconstruct the atmospheric conditions of preindustrial America. |